Campaign against grey squirrels unfair

Angus Macmillan
Scotland, UK

Published: June 27, 2008

The ongoing campaign against grey squirrels in the UK is grossly unfair and doesn’t stack up factually.
Red squirrels are at the edge of their range in the UK, which stretches from here to China, and all mammals are subject to population fluctuations in these circumstances. Indeed, all red squirrels in the UK are descendents of European introductions and not indigenous to the British Isles. If we want to assist the reds to survive we should be improving their habitat by planting trees in which they thrive, rather than wallpapering the countryside with native broadleaves that favour the greys’ expansion. We should also be reducing our own intrusion into their domain.
There is no evidence that greys are transmitting squirrel-pox virus (SQPV) to reds as the presence of antibodies in greys merely means they have been in contact with the disease, most probably by associating with reds or possibly other rodents that were already infected. The Forestry Commission have admitted that “no routine testing of live red squirrels is undertaken” and they “are not aware of any scientific evidence one way or another as to whether or not there is a resistant population of reds out there” so it is quite wrong for red squirrel groups to say that they have no immunity to the disease.  Indeed, the population could well have been wiped out long ago if there were not some form of resistance present.
Early in the last century, out of 44 districts in England where red squirrels had the disease only four districts had grey squirrels present. This suggests that SQPV has been within the red squirrel population for around a century at least and that grey squirrels are victims of a campaign of vilification. Some people even have the audacity to claim that SQPV somehow arrived around the time it was discovered in 1983 but that is about as ridiculous as claiming America didn’t exist before it was “discovered” by Leif Ericson.
The hate campaign against grey squirrels has reached such a pitch that red squirrel campaigners are prepared to ignore anything factual that doesn’t quite suit their agenda. All squirrels born in this country are “native” by birth, just the same as we are, irrespective of our colour, background or success.  To rightly expect tolerance for our own population but condemn wildlife on the basis of its ancestral background is extremely hypocritical.
For the greys’ side of the story read “Professor Acorn’s” Web site grey-squirrel.org.uk.
Yours faithfully,